


jus primae noctis

by bellemon



Series: Jonsa Week 2017 [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, IN DETAIL, Post-Canon, but not so sexy bc author is a smut virgin, how many times can one say cock in a story?, me: takes three years to get to sexy times, me: tries to write a simple pwp, not anti-Daenerys exactly but can be perceived that way, prompt: kings and queens, sexy times yo, we're about to find out!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 12:25:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12457758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellemon/pseuds/bellemon
Summary: “Sansa…” he says, breathless.What is she doing?“Sansa, you don’t…you don’t have to do this.”“You may be King Consort in the South, Jon Targaryen, but in the North I am queen. The right of the first night is mine. Would you deny me my right?” The look on her face, regal and demanding, makes his blood heat even more, if that is possible.Jon’s breath shudders, his eyes reverent. Already, he knows that this is a mistake. But he also knows that he cannot say no to her.Just one night. Just one night,he tells himself. It is an outdated practice, the right of the first night - but sheisqueen.  And he wants this. He wants this. “No, Sansa. Of course not. Never.”“Then kiss me. Jon,” she whispers. “Kiss me.”He does. Of course he does - for who is he, to deny a queen?— The night before his wedding, Jon comes by to say goodbye. It isn't what he expected, or even dared to hope for.(It's much better.)





	jus primae noctis

**Author's Note:**

> Title means "the right of the first night" in Latin.

The night before his wedding, Jon finds himself in front of the Lord’s ( _Queen’s,_ he corrects himself) Chambers. To say goodbye, he tells himself as he tentatively knocks on her door. To ask for forgiveness. To reason with her. 

However, when the door opens, revealing his barely-dressed, sleepy-eyed cousin, his mind goes blank. The excuses fall away, leaving only one reason. The one that he didn’t want to consider, didn’t want to accept: to see her. He is simply here to see her.

Her cheeks are pink, her auburn hair unbound and cast around her shoulders. The shift that adorns her slim frame is beginning to slip off her shoulder, baring her collarbone and a sizeable expanse of skin to him. Firelight flickers behind her, illuminating the outline of her curved waist and long legs.

“Jon,” she says, cold despite the shock in her eyes. She straightens, all at once becoming the impenetrable Queen in the North. Jon’s heart burns at the observation. _The things I have had to give up for her to keep that title. The things that I give up, even now, as I restrain myself from tucking that one wayward  hair behind her ear._ He quickly washes the thought away, feeling guilty. 

“Sansa,” he greets. He wonders if she notices how hard he tries to prevent it from being a sigh. How harshly he fails. What was he supposed to say? He can’t _remember._

“What are  you doing here?”

She’s so cold. She’s been this cold to him ever since he returned from the South with Daenerys, having not talked to her ever since he left Winterfell to fight the Long Night. His snubbing of Winterfell to accompany Daenerys South had, however, not been purposeful. He’d done it partly to appease the queen, who’d come to doubt his loyalties ever since Bran revealed his identity, and partly for reasons of his own. 

It hurts him, more than he can say. Winterfell is home because of Arya and Bran _and_ Sansa. Without Sansa sitting by his fire, sewing and humming songs that she has only recently recovered, advising him, arguing with him, Winterfell is nothing. Winterfell is just another castle. 

“I’ve come to...to say goodbye, I suppose,” he finally says. “To you. I’ve come to apologize.”

“For what? You have nothing to be sorry for.” Her voice is sweet and courteous, but her eyes are blazing. “You could have said goodbye tomorrow, my lord. There was no need to trouble yourself. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

 She moved to shut the door, but Jon quickly stopped it with his foot. He winces.

 “Sansa. Wait. You have to understand - “ he cuts himself off, huffing in frustration.

“Understand what, my lord?” Sansa tilts her head innocently, but does not open the door, leaving his foot awkwardly lodged between them.

“Don’t do that, Sansa. _Please._ Never call me that.” Jon can’t stand the idea that Sansa has now alienated him with her careful courtesies. He can’t stand the idea that he is no closer to Sansa than the Lords who sit her small council, or the suitors who she regally and politely turns down.

“Then what should I call you?”

“Jon. Just call me _Jon,_ as you always have _._ ”

“That would be most improper. Even monarchs must respect each other, my Lord.”

“We’re not - I’m not - “ Jon hears a noise and breaks off. Footsteps down the hall. It reminds him how much he’d like this to be private. “Please, Sansa. Please. Let me in. Let me speak with you.”

Sansa’s eyes are so hard, her face set so plainly in her mask, that Jon thinks she will deny him. She might. And if she does, if she tells him _No, my lord,_ in her cold voice, he might just leave. If she tells him no, he will never seek to bother her again.

Instead, she steps back, freeing his foot and opening the door to him. “If it please you.” If her face changes at all, he does not see, as she turns away from him to stand by the fire. “You may sit.” 

Jon cannot draw his eyes away from her. Even in her shift of see-through silk, with her auburn hair mussed, she is regal as ever. Her posture is perfect. He remembers how it was slightly hunched when she answered the door. _Was she expecting someone?_ The idea of Sansa expecting a man in her bed fills Jon with bitterness. _She could have been. She could have been disappointed to find you, instead of some other man._

He comes to sit in the chair by the fire, and only then does Sansa turn back to him. Her blue eyes search his face, and he can’t help but hold his breath under her scrutiny. Sansa was the only one who so adamantly shunned him when he returned to Winterfell, the only one who greeted him with coldness and courtesy. He tries to catch her eye, get some idea of what he can say to make her _understand_ , but she looks away before he gets the chance.

“Say what you need to say. I would dearly regret keeping you, if you are too tired to wake on the day of your wedding.”

 _This is no true wedding,_ Jon wants to tell her. _This is what Daenerys needs to show the North that we are a unified front. When we return to King’s Landing, we will once again have a ceremony at the Sept._

But Sansa knows that. She likely guessed it herself, when Daenerys lied that they were taking vows before a heart tree for Jon’s benefit. She is merely wearing a mask, and Jon finds that he has grown weary of Sansa’s cold shoulder.

“Sansa - “ he stops. He has never been good with words, so he scrubs his face instead so that he may stall. Sansa stares blankly into the fire, not sparing him a glance. “I need you to….I need you to understand, what brought me to these….this conclusion. The factors of my….my _decision_ ….”

He trails off, looking up at her. Still, she watches the fire. The glow turns her own auburn hair to flames, but it does not melt the frosty look in her eyes. Quickly, he continues, “Marrying Daenerys….it’s a smart political match. It was the best decision. You said I had to be smart, Sansa. _You_ said that. I-I had to do it, I had to - “

Suddenly, she turns to him. The coldness melts, giving way to a sudden anger. “Oh, you _had_ to do it? Which part? Abandoning me? Giving up on the North, and then somehow getting it _back_ without consulting me even once? Not even sparing Winterfell a glance on your way South? Then coming back with a _Southern title?_ ”

Sansa’s outburst startles Jon into silence. Quickly, she turns to the fire again. “I have no quarrel with Daenerys Targaryen. Do not misunderstand. I just cannot see what she has that could break your oath to the North. You said you’d fight for it, no matter the odds -”

He rises, cutting her off, drawing her eyes away from the fire. “ _And I have!_ Sansa, you must hear me. It was the only way - “

“Jon, if you had asked me, we could have found one - “

“The only other option was war - “

“It didn’t have to be! It didn’t have to be this, either, with you so far away, with me alone in Winterfell - “

“I did it for _you,_ Sansa!” Jon yells, so forcefully that Sansa stops completely, her cheeks red and her breath coming out in pants. He hasn’t seen her so incensed since their argument before he left Winterfell the first time. _You’re abandoning the North!_ She’d accused. It was sweet to see her this passionate again; lips trembling and eyes wild with frustration. It evoked the Sansa he’d known in the candlelit glow of the military tent, the Sansa he’d known before he went South and everything had come apart. The girl who trusted him with her real emotions, her sincerest self, instead of the cool Queen who wore a mask of ice.

(It would also be sweet, he knew, to see the Sansa he’d known on the morning he’d departed North to fight the Night King once again, leading Winterfell’s army away. The one who had hugged him so sweetly and kissed him on the cheek. Before then, her demeanor had been chilly - especially upon discerning the true nature of his relationship with Daenerys - but seeing him preparing to leave once again, knowing that he could die, had broken her mask. Under the eye of Daenerys Targaryen and the mix of Unsullied and Northmen alike, she’d thrown herself into his arms. Through his shock, he recognized it as the goodbye it was and held her as tight and tenderly as he could. He wished he could feel that again, the feel of Sansa in his arms, her breath against his cheek. _Come back to me, Jon._ )

He softens, not wishing to speak harshly with her. He does not want to evoke the image of Joffrey or, even worse, Ramsay. “It was for you, Sansa. For Bran and Arya. For their security. And for yours. So you could have a title tying you to Winterfell.” His eyes search her face, looking for - oh, he doesn’t know. Something, anything, that can indicate that she understands. Or that she _can_ understand, one day. Because being separated from Sansa was painful, but being in the same _castle_ as her and not even being able to speak with her is even worse. He cannot lose her completely. He’s awful with words, but these ones feel so natural to him. “Please, Sansa. Please. Don’t be cold any longer. Don’t treat me like a stranger. I can stand you being angry with me, but not...don’t hate me, please. I couldn’t bear it. I wish I’d stopped at Winterfell before I went South. You don’t know how much I wish that. But I...I feared that if I saw you, I would lose my nerve.”

He’s trying to catch her eye, but she’s staring right above his head. The fury in her eyes has dissipated, replaced with a steady frustration. She’s so stunning, her copper hair rippling like a flame as the fireplace flickers, her rosy cheeks glowing. The dim light renders her eyes into a darker blue, intense and gorgeous. She’s bouncing a little on her heels, her shoulders tensed as if she’s holding herself back.

“Look at me,” he begs. His heart is bared for her judgement. It’s impossible for her not to know, now. It is guilt that keeps him from saying it outright, but he knows for a fact that he doesn’t need to. Everything in him, every word he has spoken, every muscle ticking along his jaw, says it for him. _I love you, Sansa. More than I should. More than I have loved anyone._ “Sansa, please. Say something.”

Finally, she looks down at him, her eyes locking onto his. His breath abandons him, his stomach coils with regret. _She’s going to send me away. She’s going to yell at me. My window has closed, there’s no room for forgiveness here. And who am I to blame her?_ The thought makes his heart burn with grief. _I should have stopped at Winterfell before I went back South. She should have been the first to know, and maybe then. Maybe then everything wouldn’t have fallen apart._

But she does not send him away.

“Jon, you fool. You gods-damned fool,” she whispers. And then she kisses him.

It happens all at once - she is surging forward, and his arms are instinctively rising to catch her, and her lips crash onto his. After a moment of shock, he kisses back with equal ferocity, his hands going to her hair. He wonders if this is a dream - if he will wake once again to find silver hair on his pillow, and a dragon in his bed. But when she bites into his lip, he _knows,_ he knows that it is real, no matter how good it feels. It’s so strange, to realize that sometimes good things can be real.  Her hair runs through his fingers like water as he grips her. Her own hands are pressed against his back, sliding down the ridges of his spine in a way that makes his blood heat.

She backs him up against the chair he had once been sitting on, and it is the force of them tumbling into the cushioned seat that stirs him from his haze. She is on top of him, straddling his lap. When he draws away, he is half-hard already. Looking up to see her hovering above him, with her blown out pupils, mussed hair and swollen lips, does not make it any better. His hands have fallen to her hips to keep her steady on his lap, even though he knows what he must do. Even though he knows he should push her away.

“Sansa…” he says, breathless. _What is she doing?_ “Sansa, you don’t…you don’t have to do this.” 

“You may be King Consort in the South, Jon Targaryen, but in the North I am queen. The right of the first night is mine. Would you deny me my right?” The look on her face, regal and demanding, makes his blood heat even more, if that is possible.

 Jon’s breath shudders, his eyes reverent. Already, he knows that this is a mistake. But he als9 knows that he cannot say no to her. _Just one night. Just one night,_ he tells himself. It is an outdated practice, the right of the first night - but she _is_ queen. And he wants this. He wants this. “No, Sansa. Of course not. Never.”

 “Then kiss me. Jon,” she whispers. “Kiss me.”

 He does. Of course he does - for who is he, to deny a queen?

He kisses her feverishly, his heart hammering like a war drum. Her teeth scrape at his lip and he allows her tongue into his mouth with a groan. When he draws a way to kiss a trail down her neck, she is gasping, holding him against her.

“Jon,” she moans. “Jon, Jon, Jon.”

His name has never sounded sweeter.

His hands trail up the ridges of her spine to settle between her shoulder blades, holding her up, and he kisses the length of her collarbone, never daring to bite her for fear that he will hurt her.

It’s only when she begins to unlace him that he thinks to give her pause.

“Wait - Sansa,” he pulls away, eyes searching. Her face is obscured by the mess of auburn hair, pieces of which fall into her eyes. He brushes them back, wishing to see her face fully, his calloused fingers lingering at the skin under her ear. She is beautiful, more beautiful than the Dragon Queen has ever been. But maybe that is just his bias, his love for Sansa pushing every other woman into the shadows. “Are you sure?”

He knows what has been done to her. He wants to know that she wants this. He needs to hear it from _her,_ for he knows his mind is too clouded with desire to deduce it from her touches and kisses. Her lips may be willing, but is _she_?

“Don’t be stupid, Jon,” she says, and ducks to kiss him again.

It’s agonizing, but he turns his face away so that her lips land on his cheek. When she leans back, her brow is raised, her eyes blazing with irritation. He can’t tell if he’s imagining the hurt that also resides there. It’s almost enough to break Jon’s resolve.

Almost.

“Sansa, you have to be….you have to be sure. You have to want this. I do not wish to dishonor you, or, or make you do something you might regret,” he intones. He moves his hand from her ear to her cheek, cupping it as gently as possible.

The irritation fades from her eyes, giving way to shock. The look on her face makes her seem both young and old at once; vulnerable like a child, but tired like a woman. It reminds him of the shock that she’d shown when he entrusted the North unto her, the shock she’d shown when he noticed her flinch at a Lord slamming a table and bellowing with laughter, and he’d taken her out of the hall to stay with her in a quiet place until she told him it was fine.

He waits, patient despite the agonizing desire, for her response, not wishing to pressure her, and he thinks that shocks her even more.

Her voice is soft and welcoming. It is not the voice of a queen, cool and indifferent, but of Sansa. Just Sansa. His chest tightens. “Yes, Jon. Yes, I want this.”

She ducks to kiss him again, and this time, he does not stop her. His hand slides down to grip her thigh as they kiss, and he only pulls away for air. Feverishly, she begins to lay kisses along his cheekbones, down to his jaw, to his neck. She doesn’t dare suck his skin, fearful of leaving a mark no doubt. But he doesn’t need her to. Just the feeling of her lips is enough to steal his breath.

 _The bed,_ he thinks, his mind muddled. _Get to the bed._

Not pulling away for even a second, he cups her arse and pulls her against him so that he can hoist them both up. She gives a little squeak of surprise, but wraps her legs around his waist all the same, pressing her face against his neck and resuming her ministrations.

He places her on the bed as gently as possible, then climbs over her, settling between her open legs. Their lips meet again, and _God,_ it’s like coming home. Again and again and again. He wants to kiss her everywhere. He wants to kiss her cunt and make her moan and feel her thighs tremble against his ears.

His hands slip up to the hem of her shift, fingers grappling at the silk, but she grabs him with an iron grip.

“No,” she says. “Don’t...you can’t see…”

“See what, sweet girl?” he holds onto her thighs, traces circles with his thumbs that make her shudder.

“My skin is a mess.”

His heart tightens. Tyrion has let slip the abuses she suffered at Joffrey’s hands before, and her slight flinch every time a knight or any man comes near her is enough confirmation about how she has been treated by others.

What can he say? Sansa is the kind of woman who deserves to have every inch of her skin worshipped. He wants to _see_ her, all of her, to feel her feverish skin against his lips, But he will not force her - of course he wouldn’t. Instead, he’d like to give her reason to trust him. Trust that he will not impart the judgement or disgust that she so fears.

He leans back onto his knees, away from her but remaining between her legs, and the way her eyes flutter shut and her shoulders slump make his heart clench. Instead of saying a word, he peels away his doublet and underclothes, bearing his scarred chest for her. “Sansa,” he rasps. “Sweet girl, open your eyes. Look at me.”

Slowly, she obeys. Her lips part at the sight of the raised, jagged signs of his brother’s betrayals.

“Don’t think to feel shame before me, darling. Nothing about your imperfections are not perfect to me.”

She sits up to touch his chest, fingers lingering on the line above his heart, making him shudder. She’s so close that he can feel her breath on his skin, smell her lemon perfume. He stares at her, at her bright blue eyes trained on his chest, at her swollen lips, at her fiery hair, splayed over back and shoulders gracefully.

When she looks up, the shock in her eyes has given way to _hunger_ , hot and desperate and...and for _him._ It’s all he’s been dreaming of and more. She surges forward and he meets her in the middle, their lips crashing with renewed passion, and this time when he grapples to pull away her silk shift, she helps him. Her shift flies off into the dark as he tosses it away.

For a moment, all he can do is stare. It’s true, he’s spent many a guilty night visualizing her body, imagining how her skin might taste if he kissed it, how wet her cunt might be if he touched it. Those are the nights where he finds the most relief, all the while condemning himself. Even so, the pleasure that expectation gave him has no measure against the reality. In reality, he can see how the light falls against her skin, how the shadows pool between her breasts. In reality, he can _feel_ her, feel her chest pressed against his.

But also, the imagination could not account for the web of scars on her stomach. His jaw clenches as he sees them, the shock of anger is only dulled by the warmth of Sansa pressed against him.

He is only able to pull away when she  speaks,voice shaking. “I warned you, they’re disgusting. Don’t….you shouldn’t look.”

He can see in her eyes that she has misconstrued his anger as disgust.

 _Words are wind_ , he remembers the saying. Anything he says will be an empty platitude. He shakes his head slowly, gently pushing her down so that her back presses against the bed. She complies, albeit stiffly, her face puzzled.

Jon revels in the tiny hitch of her breath when he brushes his lips against the first scar. He presses kisses along the flat web of scars, sucking at her skin gently and making her whimper. Gods, the _sounds_ she makes. His blood is singing in his veins, hot with arousal and affection. In no time at all, he has gone past her navel, has finally reached the patch of auburn hair between her legs. He presses a kiss to each hip, sucking on the tender skin, and now she’s gasping, the sheets bunched in her clenched fists.

He’s starting to close in on her cunt, stopping only to mark her burning skin with his lips and tongue, when she gasps out, “What are you doing?”

“Kissing you,” he sighs against the inside of her thigh. Her answering shudder makes his heart race. “I want to taste you.”

“Where?”

“Everywhere.” His lips drag across the spot on her thigh just below her mound. He pulls her left thigh over his shoulder, fingers finding purchase on her leg, and stoops lower so that he can finally, finally lay a kiss on the lips of her wet cunt. “Here,” he tells her, then buries his tongue in her.

Her hips _buck_ into his face, her answering moan low and hot and musical. “Jon,” she keeps saying, thighs tight against the sides of his head. The taste of her wetness, the feel of her soaked pussy on his lips and chin, make him moan himself. His nose is buried in the mound of auburn hair, his eyes open as he feverishly caresses the lips of her pussy with his needy mouth and peeks up at her every few moments.

He begins to suck on the little swollen nub in a way that makes her pant and whimper and say his name with even more conviction. “Jon, oh gods, Jon, don’t stop, please, don’t stop.”

 **As if he ever would.** Her hands find his hair, bury themselves in the dark curls so that he can feel the tug of them on his scalp. She presses his face closer into her and all he can see is her creamy skin, all he can taste is her pleasure, all he can smell is that _citrus_ scent that clings to her. Her thighs tremble against his ears, clench around his head, her nails dig into his scalp and everything is just _Sansa, Sansa, Sansa,_ as she pants and whimpers and moans his name, back arching off the bed.

He continues to lap and suck her womanhood, helping her through what is likely her first climax, until she finally releases his hair and pushes gently on his shoulders to stop him. When he pulls away, her juices coating his skin and facial hair, he only gets a moment to breathe before she is taking her leg from where it rests on his shoulder and pulling him up to kiss him. Her tongue slips into his mouth and he groans in response. The feel of her hardened nipples makes his breeches even tighter, somehow, and he reaches between them to palm her breasts and finger her nipples.

Not even breaking away, Sansa reaches down to unlace his breeches and inch them lower. He releases her breasts to steady himself so that he can kick the damned garments off, leaving him in just his loincloth. He’s so distracted from her lips and her scent and her hands on his back that he doesn’t even realize what’s happening until it’s happened. She wraps her legs tight around his waist and rolls him over so that she is on top.

He gives a little grunt of protest when she pulls away, leaning back to sit _right on_ his hardened cock, trapped by his loincloth. The little buck of his hips makes her smirk.

“So eager,” she teases, voice low and achingly husky. Despite her air of confidence, he can see how unsure she is, how she is improvising almost.

“Only for you. No one else but you,” he croaks.

“Not even for your dragon queen?”

“No, sweet girl. Not even for her.”

Her tongue darts out to wet her swollen lips. He cannot pull his eyes away.

“Then prove it,” she raises her chin. Slowly, she begins to grind her arse against his trapped cock. “Moan for me. Moan my name.”

He gasps, voice ragged. “Oh, sweet girl, have mercy.”

“Call me queen,” she demands, her confidence rising as she sees the effect she has on him.

“My queen,” he groans. “My queen Sansa, my sweet, beautiful girl.”

She has reduced him to a pathetic, panting mess. He’d be ashamed if he wasn’t too in love to care.

“Yes?” she answers innocently, grinding down all the harder. Beads of sweat dot his hairline as he tries desperately to control himself and not spill like some greenboy. “Is there something you want, my lord?”

 _Oh._ The words that may have once made him feel alienated from her now only serve to make his cock throb.

“You, sweet girl, I want you.”

“I want you….?”

“Please,” he gasps, “I want you, please, your grace.”

“And if I let you have me, what would you do, my lord?”

Her line of questioning is agonizing and formal but so, _so,_ sensual. The way she peeks at him from below her fluttering lashes, feigning innocence, despite the way her pupils are blown out with lust.

“I would touch you - “

“Where?”

“Your breasts, your lips, your cunt, everywhere - “

 "What else?”

 "I’d like - I’d like - “

 Abruptly, she stops grinding on his cock. “To fuck me?” her voice is sharp, the coyness of her gaze replaced with a needling, expectant look. The sound of Sansa, polite, proper Sansa, saying _fuck_ is so damn _sexy_ he can barely take it.

“No,” he shakes his head slowly. It’s an effort to form coherent sentences while she is pressed up against him like this, but he manages. “Not right now. Right now I only wish to serve you. Whatever you want, sweet girl. You are my Queen and the right of the first night is yours. _I_ am yours.”

Again, shock colors her features.

“And if I want you to...to kiss my womanhood again?”

“Then it’s done.”

“If I want you to leave?”

His eyes snap closed, heart twisting. “Then I’m gone.”

All he can hear, for a moment, is the sound of her breathing, shaking and unsure.

“If I want you to...peak for me?”

He opens his eyes, looks at her again. “I’m halfway there already.”

For a moment, the world hangs on a sword’s edge. And then she rises up on her knees and his heart is racing and aching with dread, but she doesn’t send him away.

Instead, she reaches for his loincloth and begins to slide it down his thighs, letting his weeping, hardened cock spring free at last. He doesn’t need instruction - he shifts his legs and kicks the restrictive garment away.

She leans back, sitting down on his legs so she can scrutinize it. Jon feels suddenly self-conscious and ashamed, that his aching cock is so hard, like he’s just a boy of three-and-ten seeing a woman’s cleavage for the first time.

“This...for me?” she asks, softly, unsurely.

 _Which part?_ He wonders. _The love in my eyes or the hardness of my cock?_

He supposes it doesn’t matter. They are both for Sansa, anyway.

“Who else, sweet girl?”

She raises her eyes to meet his, perhaps looking for dishonesty, but there is none to be found. The hunger that blooms in her gaze when she realizes the sincerity of his words keeps his attention, prevents him from turning away. Even as she rises up to hover over his raised cock, he does not look elsewhere. Slowly, torturously, she lowers herself down onto him, taking him fully into her. The whole time, he does not dare tear his eyes away, even as his member aches and he feels a shock of pleasure.

Temptation to grab her and roll her over and thrust into her hard and fast overtakes him, but no. He will not. He will wait for her signal, let her have her way, even if she sends him away seconds before his own peak. 

She looks so gorgeous when she is in control, besides. He wouldn’t dare do anything to change that.

“You said you wanted to touch my breasts,” she reminds him.

“I still do.”

“Then do it,” she demands, before sliding back up again just as slowly as the first time and lowering herself. His hips buck a little, another zing of pleasure coursing through his body.

He obeys, palms flattening against her ribs as he takes each nipple between his fingers and fondles it. Her silky red hair falls around her shoulders and brushes his hand. As he does this, she begins to rolls her hips against him.

“May I - “ he pants, “May I take one into my mouth, my queen?”

“And do what?” she asks, breathless even as she slowly bucks her hips against his.

“Suck on it, your grace,” he brushes his thumb over the tip of her right niple, hears how her breath hitches.

“I’ll allow it,” she says, more of an exhale of breath than a command. Quick as a mouse, he sits up, one hand gripping her thigh to keep her steady on his lap, and leans down to take a nipple into his mouth, his tongue swirling over it as he sucks on it at first gently, and then harder as she begins to moan.

Her hands tangle in his curls, the gentle tug that she applies to his scalp a feeling not unwelcome, and he groans as she begins to move up and down his cock in wider movements. The steady rhythm of her cunt slapping against him, along with their labored breathing and the crackle of the fire fill the room.

Jon thrusts his hips to meet her with eagerness, a string of barely audible compliments and terms of endearment falling from his lips as he continues to suckle her tit. “My sweet girl, my Queen, my Sansa, oh you beautiful, lovely woman, so wet, so tight, so good, so good….”

She writhes against him, panting but not saying a word, simply absorbing his sweet nothings. Soon, she is oscillating between a fast and slow rhythm, marvelling at how Jon has enough self control to follow her lead. He kisses between her breasts, runs his tongue along her cleavage, before taking her other nipple in his mouth and still muttering muffled nothings against her skin.

She begins to roll against him faster again, but this time more desperately, and he can feel his pleasure beginning to mount as he meets her with every thrust, his speech devolving into just one word, the only word that he knows right now. _Sansa, Sansa, Sansa._ He pulls away from her nipple and buries his face in her neck, one hands gripping her hips as she rolls against him.

Her climax comes first, _Jon,_ she moans. He raises his head to press his lips to hers, but she keeps moaning his name.   _Oh, gods, Jon._

His release comes hard and fast as she clenches around, and he’s panting so hard and he can’t stop saying her name, feeling the soft _hiss_ of the _s_ , the blunt edge of the _n,_ the hard surface of the _a_.

It feels like forever, it doesn’t feel like long enough. After they come down from their high,  Jon pulls out of her and lies back down, still holding her flush against him. She lets him, albeit with a weak protest.

“We’ll be caught.”

“Not if we wake up early,” he assures her easily. Despite his exhaustion, he decides to strike up a conversation. Or, try at least. It’s his best chance. “How is Winterfell?” he questions.

Sansa gives a little laugh. “We haven’t had a civil conversation since you returned, and you pick _Winterfell_ of all things to talk about?”

Abashed, Jon shrugs. “I figured something neutral would be best.”

“Well, Winterfell’s _fine,_ if you must know. The rebuilding efforts are progressing smoothly, the stores for the oncoming winter are where I want them to be, and I think the Lords are actually growing to respect me as more than a woman.”

“More fool them if they don’t.”

She gives a little breath of laughter.

They continue on like that, just talking. They speak of Robb, briefly. How much they miss him. Whether or not he’d be proud of them or ashamed. They speak of Rickon, too, their wild little brother who would likely have grown under the doting of Davos Seaworth, had he ever grown at all. They speak of Arya’s fierceness, Bran’s strange visions.

They speak of themselves, too. Jon relays to her the story of his scars. She, more haltingly, also tells her story, though he says she doesn’t have to.

“It’s what I deserved. I betrayed father, practically sold him to Joffrey. The gods were punishing me.”

“No, Sansa, no,” he takes her hand from where it rests on waist, kisses her wrist and does not let go. “You didn’t deserve that. The only people who got what they deserved are the ones that hurt you - and even then, I wish I could kill them all again.”

“You’re too good to me, Jon,” she sighs, squeezing his fingers.

“No one can be too good to you, Sansa, even if they gave you the world,” he laughs. She lets out a little laugh of her own, making his heart soar.

They avoid conversing about the situation they find themselves in. _That is for tomorrow_ , Jon tells himself. _For now, it’s just us. Talk of Daenerys has no place in our bed._

At the end, right as he is drifting to sleep, Sansa tells him. “I missed you. The nights we spent by your fire. I hadn’t felt that level of...safety since before Father was arrested. Did you miss me?”

“No,” he sighs, content in her arms. He snuggles against her, fingers tracing little circles on her hip bone. “You were always with me. In my dreams.”

Sansa grabs his hand from her hip, lays a kiss on his knuckles, but doesn’t say a word.

Jon’s heart is sleepy and content, his skin is tingling from her kiss. It comes out before he can even think to stop it, “I love you.”

They both freeze. What once went unsaid but understood is now spoken, glaringly obvious. Now that it is said, there is a chance of rejection. But he can’t take it back. Most importantly, He won’t. He's too far gone.

“Don’t say that.”

“Even if it’s true?”

“Especially then.”

He raises himself up to look at her. As his cheek brushes hers, he feels a cool wetness. . His eyes  turn to her face, and he feels a hitch in his breath at the tears he sees there. He never wants her to cry.

He especially never wants to be the cause.

“There’s no need to cry, my sweet,” he intones, though he’s not sure if he believes it himself. He’d say anything to make her stop. “You don’t have to love me back.”

Sansa refuses to look at him, her eyes stubbornly lingering on the ceiling.

He begins to pepper kisses on her face, taking each tear away with a kiss, but they keep coming. She doesn’t stop him. Finally, she says, “You’re to be wed tomorrow.”

“Aye, sweet girl,” he does not stop kissing her.

“And then you’ll be gone.”

He’ll say anything, do anything, to stop the salty tears sliding down her cheeks. “We can work this out.”

“Oh?”

“I’ll...I’ll talk to Daenerys. We can find some other way to keep the peace.”

“Together?”

He nods, presses his nose to her cheek. “Together.”

“Oh, Jon,” she says, voice mournful, “You shouldn’t have come.”

It’s like being slapped. He pulls away, and her eyes finally meet his. “Do you regret it then?”

“No,” she whispers. “No.”

It’s no _I love you,_ but it’ll do. “Tomorrow, everything will be right again. We’ll find a way. I’ll...I’ll stay here, with you, if that’s what you want. Everything will be alright”

Desperately, he wants to believe himself. He thinks Sansa does too, because she gives him a quiet nod. “Everything will be all right.”

“We’ll work this out,.” He lays back down and  nuzzles her neck, slings his arm over her torso. She pulls the blanket up to cover them both before placing her hand in his hair and holding him to herself.

“Everything will be okay,” she agrees.

Laying a kiss on the cool skin of her collarbone, he presses his face into the crook of her neck and slowly drifts to sleep, the gentle rise and fall of Sansa’s chest rocking him into oblivion.

* * *

 

She stares at his sleeping face, her heart aching. _I wish you hadn’t come here. I wish you hadn’t given me something to hope for._ Because it was foolish, she knew it was foolish, to believe that Jon could release himself from his agreement with Daenerys so late in the game.

It was too late for them. She knows that, and yet she can’t help hoping that some miracle will save them from becoming a tragedy.  

“You should have come back first,” she tells his sleeping form. “You were supposed to come back to me.”

He shifts against her in his sleep, nose twitching endearingly. She has seen him asleep before, once when  they were sitting by his fire, but he didn't look half as peaceful as he does now. 

“I love you too,” she whispers. If no one hears the words, were they ever said? “I love you, I love you. I love you. I love you.”

Sansa hopes that her words will reach his dreams. Because she knows that he will never hear them again, not from her.

* * *

The morning after, Sansa is not in the bed with him. She is standing by the dying fire, watching the glowing embers flicker out. She’s wearing her shift again, but in the dimness of the early morning hour, he cannot see the lines of her body through it. Her hair is a braided rope, falling down her back with grace. Contentment fills his chest, seeps into his bones. Everything is going to be okay. Sansa is talking to him again. He has just woken from the sweetest dream. He is _home,_ and here to stay.

This image of her, seconds before she says the words that break him, will be the one that he always remembers.

“You told me you wished only to serve me,” her voice is stiff and somber.

“Come back to bed, sweetling, we can speak of this later.”

“I want you to get up and go back to your rooms. No one can see you. I want you to get dressed and leave.”

His sleepy mind cannot grasp what she is saying. “Sansa, please, come back to bed. It’s freezing.”

“You said you’d leave if I wanted you to.”

That wakes him up. “What? Sansa, what are you saying?”

“Last night, all of it,” she pauses, and he can see her hands tightening around her shift. “It was a mistake. You have to leave before anyone notices you are gone. You have a wedding to prepare for.”

“Sansa, I thought - “

“You thought wrong. We can’t change anything, and frankly, I’m not sure if I care to. You’re the fool in love. I am just a woman who made a mistake. I want you to leave, and never speak of this.”

“You said you didn’t regret it,” he says softly, not bothering to hide the crack in his voice.  

“I didn’t know what I was talking about. What matters is that I regret it now, and I want you to leave before the consequences get any worse.”

Finally, he nods, agony plain on his face. Not anger or petulance. Just agony.

He climbs out of the bed and begins rooting around for his clothing, his heart aching. First he finds his loincloth, then his breeches, and finally his undershirt and doublet. It feels like an eternity of silence. He can feel his hands trembling, but every time he looks at Sansa, she is perfectly still, like a porcelain doll.

He dresses in silence too, although several times he fumbles with his laces and can’t get them done. Finally, he chooses to leave them open. All the castle is still asleep, no one will even see him if he’s careful.

He remembers the warmth she had for him the night before. _What happened?_ He wants to ask, but he doesn’t dare. He knows what happened. Sansa realized that what he’d done was unforgivable, that they could never come back to how they were. And perhaps, he’d also scared her off with his declaration. She didn’t love him back, and he’d foolishly declared his own love for her.

Just as he’s about to open the door, he turns to her. “You really want me to go?”

She stares into the fire, not answering him for a while, then gives a curt nod.

He mirrors the gesture, albeit slower, and then opens the door to leave.

 _Mistake, mistake, mistake,_ her words keep playing in his head. But also he can’t stop remembering her saying, _Jon, Jon, Jon._

Jon wonders when he’ll stop hearing her voice. When he’ll stop dreaming of her, of her moans and her whimpers and her warm smile.

(Already, he has resigned himself to a life of misery and longing.)

* * *

 

 The door clicks shut behind him. He didn’t even slam it, the way Joff always would when he was in an upset. Silence fills the room, silence that replaces the comfort of Jon’s soft breathing.

He’s been gone for a while before she finally allows herself to sink to the floor and cry. At first, it’s just a gentle weeping, but soon her ragged breaths become ugly, hiccupping sobs.

She almost expects him to come back and hold her. But it’s a fool’s wish, she knows. Just like she knows it was a fool’s hope to think that there was any other way to avoid war with Daenerys. Stealing away the Southern Queen’s betrothed from right under her. She’d be branded a whore, a temptress, and the world would erupt in chaos once again, just as it did in Robert’s Rebellion. Except this time, with _dragons._ The North would fall, the Stark line finally diminished. For her sake, for Winterfell’s sake, for Bran and Arya’s sake, she could not let that happen.

She’d been awake half the night trying to find ways for Jon to cancel the wedding without offending the Dragon Queen. She’d come up blank.

It was too late for them, she’d realized finally. But not too late to save Winterfell. She’d had to choose. Her own selfish desires, or the freedom and safety of her family and people.

It was a choice she’d been given before, but this time she’d chosen correctly.  The North would never be bound again

And if that meant giving up the only man for whom she’d ever felt something other than fear or disgust, then so be it.


End file.
